Birds of Prey (93 page)

‘I’ll pass the chase close to starboard. Fire as you bear, Master Daniel!’ Big Daniel raced to the bows and took command of the number-one starboard battery. Hal saw him move
swiftly from gun to gun to check their laying, inserting the wedges to lower the aim. They would be firing almost directly down into the dhow as they swept past her.

The
Golden Bough
rushed down silently upon the little craft, and Hal said quietly to the helm, ‘Slowly bring her up a point to larboard.’

As they realized the menace of the gaping guns, the crew of the dhow fled from the rail and flung themselves down behind the stubby little mast or crouched behind the bales and casks that
cluttered her deck.

The first battery fired together in one smoking, thunderous discharge and every shot struck home. The base of the mast was blown away in a storm of white wood splinters and her rigging crashed
down to hang overside in an untidy tangle of rope and canvas. The old man at the tiller disappeared, as though turned to air by a wizard’s spell. He left only a red smear on the torn
planking.

‘Avast firing!’ Hal bellowed, to make himself heard in the ear-numbing aftermath of the gunfire. The dhow was crippled: her bows were already swinging away before the wind, the
tiller shot away and her mast gone overboard. The
Golden Bough
left her rolling in her wake.

‘Hold your course, Mr Tyler.’ The
Golden Bough
tore straight at the flotilla of small craft strewn across the blue waters ahead. These had seen the merciless treatment of the
first dhow and the Imperial colours flying at the frigate’s masthead, and now every one put his helm hard up and came around before the wind. Goose-winged, they fled before the
Golden
Bough
’s charge.

‘Steer for the vessel dead ahead!’ said Hal quietly, and Ned Tyler brought the frigate around a point. The dhow Hal had chosen was one of the largest in sight, and its open deck was
crowded with men. There must be at least three hundred packed into her, Hal estimated. It was a short voyage across the narrow sea, and her captain had taken a risk: she was carrying far more
troops than was prudent.

A thin shout of defiance reached Hal’s ears as they closed the range: ‘Allah Akbar! God is great!’ Steel war helmets glinted on the heads of the Omani troops, and they
brandished their long, curved scimitars. There came an untidy volley of musket fire, aimed at the frigate, the popping of the jezails and puffs of gunsmoke along the dhow’s side. A lead ball
thudded into the mast above Hal’s head.

‘Every man aboard her is a soldier,’ Hal said aloud. He did not have to add that if they were allowed to reach the western shore of the sea they would march against Judith Nazet.
‘Give her a volley of ball. Sink her, Master Daniel!’

The heavy iron cannonballs raked the troopship from deck to keel and split her like kindling under the axe. The sea rushed in through her torn belly. She capsized and the water was suddenly
filled with the bobbing heads of struggling, drowning men.

‘Steer for that vessel with the silver pennant.’ Hal did not look back but tore through the fleet like a barracuda into a shoal of flying fish. Not one could outrun him. With her
mountain of white sails driving her, the
Golden Bough
flew upon them as if they were at anchor, and her guns crashed out in flame and smoke. Some of the little ships burst open and sank,
others were left in the frigate’s wake with mast snapped away and sails dragging alongside. Some of the sailors threw themselves overboard at the moment that the culverins came to bear upon
them. They preferred the sharks to the blast of guns.

Several ran for the nearest island and tried to anchor in the shoal waters where the
Golden Bough
could not follow. Others deliberately ran aground, and their crews dived overboard to
swim and wade to the beach.

Only those ships furthest to the east and closest to the Arabian coast had the head start to run from the frigate’s charge. Hal looked astern and saw the water behind him dotted with the
floundering hulls of those he had overtaken. Every mile he chased the survivors eastwards was a mile further from Mitsiwa.

‘None of those will come back in a hurry!’ he said grimly, as he watched them fly in confusion. ‘Mr Tyler, please be good enough to wear the ship around and lay her close
hauled on the starboard tack.’

This was the
Golden Bough
’s best point of sailing. ‘There is no dhow built in all Arabia that can point higher into the wind than my darling can,’ Hal said aloud, as he
saw twenty sail to windward trying to escape by beating up into the west. The
Golden Bough
tore back into the scattered fleet, and now some of the dhows dropped their wide triangular main
sail as they saw him coming and screamed to Allah for mercy.

Hal checked the frigate as he came alongside each of these, bringing her head to the wind as he launched a boat and sent a prize crew, comprising one white seaman and six of his Amadoda, to
board the surrendered ship. ‘If there is nothing of value in her cargo, take off her crew and put a torch to her.’

By late that afternoon, Hal had five large dhows on tow behind the
Golden Bough
, and another seven sailing in company with him, under jury-rigging and with his prize crews aboard, as they
headed back towards Mitsiwa. Every one of the captured vessels was heavily laden with vital provisions of war. Behind him, the sky was dulled with the smoke of the burning hulls and the sea was
littered with the wreckage.

General Nazet sat on her black Arabian stallion and watched from the cliff tops as this untidy flotilla straggled into Mitsiwa Roads. At last she closed her telescope and remarked to Admiral
Senec beside her, ‘I see why you call him El Tazar! This Englishman is a barracuda, indeed.’ Then she turned away her face so that he could not see the thoughtful smile that softened
her handsome features. El Tazar. It is a good name for him, she thought, and then, irrelevantly, another notion occurred to her. I wonder if he is as fierce a lover as he is a warrior. It was the
first time since God had chosen her to lead his legions against the pagan that she had looked at any man through a woman’s eyes.

C
olonel Cornelius Schreuder dismounted in front of the spreading tent of shimmering red and yellow silk. A groom took his horse and he paused to
look around the encampment. The royal tent stood on a small knoll overlooking Adulis Bay. Up here the sea breeze cooled the air and made it possible to breathe. On the plain below, where the army
of Islam was bivouacked around the port of Zulla, the stones crackled in the heat and shimmered in the mirage.

The bay was crowded with shipping, but the tall masts of the
Gull of Moray
dominated all others. The Earl of Cumbrae’s ship had come in during the night, and now Schreuder heard his
voice raised in argument within the silken tent. His lips twitched in a smile that lacked humour, and he adjusted the hang of the golden sword at his side before he strode to the flap of the tent.
A tall subahdar bowed to him. All the troops of Islam had come to know him well: in the short time he had served with them, Schreuder’s feats of daring had become legend in the Mogul’s
army. The officer ushered him into the royal presence.

The interior of the tent was commodious and sumptuously furnished. The entire floor was thickly covered with gorgeously coloured silk carpets and silken draperies formed a double skin that kept
out the sun’s heat. The low tables were of ivory and rare wood, and the vessels upon them were of solid gold.

The Great Mogul’s brother, the Maharajah Sadiq Khan Jahan, sat in the centre on a pile of silk cushions. He wore a tunic of padded yellow silk and striped pantaloons of red and gold. The
slippers on his feet were scarlet with long, curling toes and buckles of gold. His turban was yellow and secured above his brow by an emerald the size of a walnut. He was close-shaven, with only a
kohl line of fine moustache upon his petulant upper lip. Across his lap was a scimitar in a scabbard so richly encrusted with jewels that the sparkle of them pricked the eye. On one gloved hand he
held a falcon, a magnificent Saker of the desert. He lifted the bird and kissed its beak as tenderly as if it had been a beautiful woman – or rather, Schreuder thought bleakly, as if it were
one of his pretty dancing boys.

A little behind him, on another pile of cushions, sat Ahmed El Grang, the Left Hand of Allah. He was so wide-shouldered as to seem deformed, and his neck was thick and corded with muscle. He
wore a steel war helmet and his beard was dyed with henna, red as that of the Prophet. His massive chest was covered with a steel cuirass, and there were bracelets of steel upon his wrists. His
brows beetled and his eyes were as cold and implacable as those of an eagle.

Behind this ill-matched pair sat a host of courtiers and officers, all richly dressed. Before the Prince knelt a translator who, his forehead pressed to the ground, was trying to keep up with
the Buzzard’s flood of invective.

The Buzzard stood before the Prince with his fists bunched on his hips. On his head was his beribboned bonnet, and his beard was more bushy and fiery than the dyed, barbered curls that covered
El Grang’s chin. He wore half armour above his plaid. He turned with relief when Schreuder entered the tent and made deep and respectful obeisance, first to the Prince and then to El
Grang.

‘Jesus love you, Colonel. I need you now to talk some sense into these two lovely laddies. This ape—’ Cumbrae spurned the grovelling translator with his boot. ‘This ape
is blethering away, and making a nonsense of what I’m telling them.’ He knew that Schreuder had spent many years in the Orient, and that Arabic was one of the languages in which he was
fluent.

‘Tell them that I came here to take prizes, not to match my
Gull
against a ship of equal force and have her shot away beneath my feet!’ the Buzzard instructed him. ‘They
want me to do battle with the
Golden Bough
.’

‘Explain the matter to me more fully,’ Schreuder invited. ‘That way I may be able to assist you.’

‘The
Golden Bough
has arrived in these waters – we must presume under the command of young Courtney,’ the Buzzard told him.

Schreuder’s face darkened at the name. ‘Will we never be rid of him?’

‘It seems not.’ Cumbrae chuckled. ‘In any event, he is flying the white cross of the Empire, and whaling into El Grang’s transports with a vengeance. He has sunk and
captured twenty-three sail in the last week, and no Mussulman captains will put out to sea while he is in the offing. Single-handed he is blockading the entire coast of Ethiopia.’ He shook
his head in reluctant admiration. ‘From the cliffs above Tenwera, I watched him fall upon a flotilla of El Grang’s war dhows. He cut them to pieces. By Jesus, he handles his ship as
well as Franky ever could. He sailed circles around those Mussulmen and shot them out of the water. The entire fleet of Allah the All Merciful is all bottled up in port, and El Grang is starved of
reinforcements and stores. The Mussulmen call young Courtney
El Tazar
, the Barracuda, and not one will go out to face him.’

Then his grin faded and he looked lugubrious. ‘The
Golden Bough
is bright and clean of weed. My
Gull
has been at sea for nigh on three years. Her timbers are riddled with
shipworm. I would guess that, even on my best point of sailing, the
Golden Bough
has at least three knots of speed on me.’

‘What do you want me to tell his highness?’ Schreuder asked scornfully. ‘That you are afraid to meet young Courtney?’

‘I am afraid of no man living – or dead, for that matter. But there is no profit in it for me. Hal Courtney has nothing I want, but if it comes to a single-ship fight, he could do me
and my
Gull
fearful damage. If they want me to fight him they will have to sweeten my cup a little.’

Schreuder turned back to the Prince and explained this to him in carefully chosen diplomatic terms. Sadiq Khan Jahan stroked his falcon as he listened expressionlessly, and the bird ruffled out
its feathers and hooded its yellow eyes. When Schreuder had finished, the Prince turned to El Grang. ‘What did you say they called this red-bearded braggart?’

‘They call him the Buzzard, your highness,’ El Grang replied hoarsely.

‘A name well chosen, for it seems he prefers to pick out the eyes of the weak and the dying and scavenge the leavings of fiercer creatures rather than to kill for himself. He is no
falcon.’

El Grang nodded agreement, and the Prince turned back to Schreuder. ‘Ask this noble bird of prey what payment he demands for fighting El Tazar.’

‘Tell the pretty boy I want a lakh of rupees in gold coin, and I want it in my hands before I leave port,’ Cumbrae replied, and even Schreuder gasped at the audacity. One lakh was a
hundred thousand rupees. The Buzzard went on amiably, ‘You see, I have got the Prince with his bum in the air and his pantaloons round his ankles. I intend to tup him full length, but not the
way he likes it.’

Schreuder listened to the Prince’s reply, then turned back to Cumbrae. ‘He says that you could build twenty ships like the
Gull
for a lakh.’

‘That may be so, but it won’t buy me a pair of balls to replace the ones that Hal Courtney shoots away.’

The Prince smiled at this response. ‘Tell the Buzzard he must have lost them long ago, but he makes a fine eunuch. I could always find a place for him in my harem.’

The Buzzard guffawed at the insult, but shook his head. ‘Tell the pretty pederast, no gold and the Buzzard flies away.’

The Prince and El Grang whispered to each other, gesticulating. At last, they seemed to reach a decision.

‘I have another proposition that the bold captain might find more to his taste. The risk he takes will not be so great, but he will receive the lakh he demands.’ The Prince rose to
his feet, and all his court fell upon their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground. ‘I will leave Sultan Ahmed El Grang to explain this to you in secrecy.’